Customer Reviews

Shakespeare: His Life, Work, and Era

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This is a detailed biography of the life of Shakespeare which makes use of all the available documentation. It also reads the life , play by play and gives us whatever is known on the business of Shakespeare's life as actor. I learned much from it about Shakespeare as businessman, as purchaser of homes and land in Stratford, as eager litigant, as successful and respected citizen. I also learned much about Shakespeare's tremendous emphasis on making his theatre popular and successful. What I did not learn and what was not really attempted in the work was any kind of analysis of Shakespeare's character in depth. So too the plays were spoken of but in a way which did not really interpret them in any depth.
A tremendous amount of work went into this book. It tells much about Shakespeare without however really probing or trying to explain the mystery of his greatness.
P.S. I would qualify my last remark a bit. Kay does argue that Shakespeare's education in school was a very good one, and the claims that he could not have 'known enough' or 'been educated enough' to write the plays are dismissed by Kay as nonsense. Shakespeare also speaks about the business failure of Shakespeare's father and the search of Shakespeare for success. He does not however touch upon Shakespeare's marriage, does not speak very much about Shakespeare as a father. This is a good book but not the one which tries to answer the kinds of questions I have about him and his work.